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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24533107">Venite, venite</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli/pseuds/ladylapislazuli'>ladylapislazuli</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Masquerade, Post-Canon, disguises</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:35:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,189</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24533107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli/pseuds/ladylapislazuli</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do I know you, sir?” Dimitri says.</p>
<p>Sylvain angles his face down to hide his lips and eyes. Turns, slowly, face wreathed in shadows, and all that remains is the gleam of his mask.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Sylvain Jose Gautier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>216</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Venite, venite</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Venite pur avanti</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Vezzose mascherette</em>
</p>
<p>Nobody recognises Sylvain.</p>
<p>He moves through the crowd on swift, agile feet. Moving upwards, ever upwards, slinking his way up the outside stairs and into the crowded entrance hall. The noise is overwhelming – shouts of laughter, cries of greeting, and people have already begun to dance. Brief, coming together then breaking apart in practice, in play, unable to contain their energy as they wait for the music to begin.</p>
<p>Sylvain is dressed all in black. A mix of leather and silk, a great dark cloak over his shoulders and a hood pulled over the red of his hair. His hands are gloved, his black boots coming to mid-thigh, and his face is masked.</p>
<p>The mask is a beautiful thing. Feline, black and gold, painted with the gleaming stripes of a tiger.</p>
<p>No one recognises him. He looks entirely unlike himself, a sleek, dark figure in a tiger’s mask. Just one man among many on the night of the masquerade.</p>
<p>He slips off to the side, to one of the corridors leading into the palace proper – and here is the one flaw in his disguise. There are two layers to this ball – a lower level for any and all who wish to come, and an upper level entered only by invitation, for it would not be safe to give a masked crowd free access to the king.</p>
<p>The entrances are guarded. Sylvain has an invitation that will allow him to pass, but it bears his name. He pulls it from his pocket in silence, and the guard peers at him. Into his eyes, through the holes of the mask.</p>
<p>Mercifully he does not speak Sylvain’s name aloud. Instead he nods, and steps aside.</p>
<p>Sylvain winds his way through the corridors and up, up, up into the palace proper. Away from the crowds, travelling lesser-known paths. Into stillness, and silence.</p>
<p>Not his usual path, or his usual method. But tonight, just this once, Sylvain throws tradition to the wind.</p>
<p>There are many ways around the palace. Many winding, secret paths, that lead everywhere and nowhere. The palace is old, and though frequent repairs smooth it over, it is full of cracks.</p>
<p>Sylvain has visited since he was a child – he knows them all.</p>
<p>He slips into the upper level of the hall like a thief in the night. So far from who he is - the Margrave Gautier, celebrated soldier, who cannot help but draw every eye in the room. It is strange, to go unnoticed. To stay at the back rather than throwing himself at once into the assembly.</p>
<p>But Sylvain is playing a game tonight, and he does not intend to be distracted.</p>
<p>Sylvain’s looming is noticed in small pockets, in starts and whispers. He is a figure of mystery, a dark shadow whose identity is fully concealed - unlike the rest. Though they are masked, he recognises them all.</p>
<p>Sylvain reaches into his pocket and, with a flourish and a bow, throws glitter high into the air.</p>
<p>Laughter. A smattering of applause. He twirls, bows, twirls. Jokester, trickster, harmless. Bowing gallantly to ladies and gentlemen alike. A dark figure, but not a dangerous one.</p>
<p>Playing his game.</p>
<p>The dancing soon begins. Below, at the bottom of the guarded stairs, people revel in the music. Dancing with abandon, arms in the air and feet thundering to the rhythm of the drums. Wild already, inhibitions lowered with the masks upon their faces – they will only grow wilder as the evening goes on. They are folk from all over the kingdom, nameless, unidentified. All are welcome, all may come.</p>
<p>Up above, where Sylvain stands, the dancing is more restrained. Courtly and stilted and polite, for these people are in the presence of the king, and the guards are always watching.</p>
<p>Dimitri does not like to be set apart from his people. The guards watch the entrances, but they watch him too, for he will go where he wills whether it is wise or not.</p>
<p>Sylvain intends to lure him away.</p>
<p>He bows and twirls and laughs with those up above. Waiting, searching, for a flash of blond hair. Blending in but transient, never attaching to anyone too long.</p>
<p>On any other night he’d be dancing already. Dancing, flirting, kissing hands and making as much of a spectacle of himself as possible. Offering love and heartbreak in the space of a minute, an hour, a night. Reeling them in likes flies to honey with his charm and clever words, with his rakish reputation.</p>
<p>
  <em>Dance with him, play with him, but do not think the Margrave Gautier is sincere.</em>
</p>
<p>Not tonight. Sylvain is masked, and tonight he has eyes for one person alone.</p>
<p>He moves through the crowd. Onward and onward. Circling, weaving, pushing through, until -</p>
<p>There.</p>
<p>Dimitri is dancing. Graceful and polite, his cloak swirling behind him. Immaculately trained, every step perfect, leading with a sure precision as he takes his partner about the room. His blond hair spills long over his shoulders, held out of his face by a lion’s mask.</p>
<p>Masked or not, Sylvain would know him anywhere.</p>
<p>He is beautiful. So beautiful, a thought Sylvain was never supposed to think. So beautiful, and once Sylvain noticed it, he could not <em>stop</em> noticing.</p>
<p>He has known Dimitri since Dimitri was a babe in the cradle. Known him through the years of scabby knees and missing teeth, of sticky hands and running feet, of gangling awkwardness and bad skin. Known him too through years of madness – real, true madness – and violence of the kind Sylvain could not have dreamed. Known him as child, and prince, and king, madman and saviour alike.</p>
<p>Dimitri was never supposed to be so beautiful. Of all the people in the world, he is the one person entirely out of Sylvain’s reach, the one person at whom Sylvain should not look.</p>
<p>Just tonight. One night, then never again.</p>
<p>Dimitri bows to his partner. Steps away, back towards the crowd, and he is beautiful. The mask brings out his sharp, elegant jawline, the thin perfection of his lips. His hair, grown down past his shoulders, is a mane of silk. His overcoat is tight, fitted, and seeing him like this is a blow.</p>
<p>Dimitri hides a lot. Behind armour and tradition and the heavy mantle of a king. He wears layer upon layer, all the way up to his throat, all the way down to his hands and feet. Tonight, he hides only behind his mask. And the rest of him is there for the looking.</p>
<p>His legs are long and muscular. His broad, well-defined chest tapers down into a tiny, almost delicate waist. Dimitri is a lesson in contradictions – made of sheer, brute strength, yet he looks as though Sylvain could snap him in two.</p>
<p>Sylvain doesn’t want to hurt him. Not here, not ever. Wants Dimitri with a breathlessness that surprises even him. Has wanted him for so long, <em>too</em> long, and it’s frightening. Sylvain isn’t that sort of man, isn’t the kind who falls.</p>
<p>Rake, degenerate, flirt. That is Sylvain. Hooded and disguised, he could do anything, be anything, go wherever and with whomever he wished - but there is only one thing he wants.</p>
<p>Dimitri isn’t his, and never will be. But perhaps, just for tonight…</p>
<p>Sylvain moves forward, cutting through the crowd. Moves before anyone else can reach Dimitri - and they try, for there in an unspoken order, a queue of fine nobles awaiting their turn in the king’s arms. Sylvain is quicker. He bows low before his king, hooded and masked. Extends his hand.</p>
<p>Behind his own mask, Dimitri’s face is startled. Sylvain feels the eyes of the crowd upon his back, the whispers catching and carrying about the strange masked man who approaches the king so brazenly.</p>
<p>He is disguised, unrecognisable. Yet none may come into the presence of the king without an invitation.</p>
<p>
  <em>Who is he?</em>
</p>
<p>Curiosity. An air of mystery. All part of the game - Sylvain is counting on it.</p>
<p>He flashes a crooked smile up at the king, sly, playful. A smiling mouth beneath the gleaming tiger mask. Sylvain has chosen his disguise well – through mask and garb and manner, he is nothing like himself.</p>
<p>Dimitri does not recognise him. He is guarded, cautious. Sylvain can practically feel the thoughts flitting through his head – Sylvain knows him well – but Dimitri’s curiosity wins out.</p>
<p>He places his hand in Sylvain’s.</p>
<p>Sylvain rewards him for his daring with another grin beneath the tiger mask. Bows again, the king’s hand clasped in his. Considers, for a moment, pressing a kiss to that gloved hand – but it is too soon. Dimitri’s hands are beautiful things, their grace belying their strength, but there are too many eyes on them. Sylvain is playing, but it is not that sort of game.</p>
<p>He straightens. Leads Dimitri back onto the dance floor, and with a breath that just-barely shakes, he sets his other hand on Dimitri’s waist. If Dimitri is surprised, he says nothing. Sets his hand on Sylvain’s shoulder, accepting Sylvain’s request to lead the dance. Ignoring the whispers.</p>
<p>Dimitri is the king. The king, not a man made to be held. A leader, not a man made to be led.</p>
<p>But tonight is a night of masks. And flimsy as Dimitri’s is – there is no disguising him, no hiding – he lets Sylvain sweep him away all the same.</p>
<p>They dance. Perfect steps to perfect music. Sylvain is caught, hypnotised by the warm lines of Dimitri’s body so close to his own, by the subtle scent of Dimitri’s cologne, by Dimitri’s hand resting in his.</p>
<p>Sylvain has dreamed of this. Of his hands on Dimitri’s waist, trailing across all that warm, solid skin. Yet somehow, now the time comes, it feels almost like sacrilege. His touch is light, restrained – even with the mask, he does not dare hold Dimitri tighter.</p>
<p>Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause. Hand in hand, heart in throat.</p>
<p>Dimitri was never supposed to be so beautiful. To strike some hidden, forgotten part of Sylvain’s faithless heart. The ballroom could catch fire around them, but with his eyes on Dimitri, Sylvain would never know.</p>
<p>When the music stops, Dimitri draws back. Slips his hand from Sylvain’s in an instant, and Sylvain is cold with the loss of him.</p>
<p>“Thank you for the dance,” Dimitri says. Formal, distant. Guarded, for Sylvain has said nothing. Sought the king’s hand openly, aggressively, then danced with him in perfect silence.</p>
<p>Strange. Strange behaviour from anyone, for Dimitri’s admirers and sycophants are many, and none of them are silent. Strange behaviour from Sylvain most of all – but Dimitri does not know who he is.</p>
<p>Sylvain will not tell him. It would ruin the game, after all.</p>
<p>Sylvain reaches into his breast pocket. Pulls out the gift he brought with him. Says, voice lowered and roughened to disguise it, “For you.”</p>
<p>It is a simple token. A single pressed flower slipped into Dimitri’s hand. Then Sylvain whips away in a great swirling of his cloak, drawing all eyes towards him. He throws glitter, twirling in his great dark cloak. Drama, intrigue, entertainment for the crowd. A far more interesting spectacle than the tiny token pressed into the king’s palm.</p>
<p>A red carnation. <em>My heart aches for you.</em></p>
<p>Sylvain moves. (Runs, flees, retreats.) A living performance in the crowd, inviting their eyes and their laughter. It comes naturally. Even without the mask, that is his role.</p>
<p>Margrave Gautier is all smiles and flirtation and revelry, flitting about the room like a butterfly. Completely untethered, untamed and untameable. In love with everyone and no one, available to all and none.</p>
<p>The man in the tiger mask is a different creature, and he plays a game of an entirely different kind. Because tonight, there is something at stake. Something precious, something vital. A secret only Sylvain knows. Tonight Sylvain’s heart is pounding in his chest, and only Dimitri may soothe its beating.</p>
<p>He is patient. He can wait.</p>
<p>The lords and ladies of the court are hungry, and Dimitri is drawn into his next dance. Another, then another. Sylvain prowls the sidelines. Does not eat or drink or ask a stranger for their hand. Does not flirt or smile or charm. He is single-minded, focused.</p>
<p>Sylvain plays his game.</p>
<p>He waits until he sees Dimitri break off from the dancers. Sees him stride through the crowd, moving too quickly to be caught. Dimitri stops beside a tall, masked man who can only be Dedue. Holds out his hand, as surreptitious as Dimitri knows how to be, the carnation clutched inside it and a question clear on his lips.</p>
<p>Sylvain’s heart is rabbit-quick, his feline mask askew. Of all the people in this room, both high and down below, Dedue will know what that flower means.</p>
<p>Dimitri turns, and Sylvain slides back into the crowd again. Careful, artful as he weaves in and out. Tracking Dimitri as Dimitri tracks him – in flashes. Luring, guiding, enticing.</p>
<p>He heads for a side corridor. Waits until Dimitri’s searching eye lands on him, and presses a hand over his heart. Bows. Leaves - but in such a way that he is easy to follow.</p>
<p>All he has is Dimitri’s curiosity. And Dimitri is a dutiful man, holds his obligations as both king and host paramount – there is no guarantee. But Dimitri is also a lonely one. Sylvain is cruel, both to know it and to use it against him, to use it to draw him out.</p>
<p>Sylvain does not mean to hurt him. The last thing he wants is to hurt him.</p>
<p>He makes his way down the corridor, winding down and down, a path both secretive and easy to follow. He stops in the courtyard, a humble place by light of day, but beautiful by night. Sylvain arranges himself artfully in the moonlight, like a figure in a painting. Dashing, romantic. Hooded, all in black. A masked suitor, mysterious, and made for tonight alone.</p>
<p>The mask is a beautiful thing. Hides him away, even as he tells the truth. Keeps his secrets, even as he reveals them for all to see.</p>
<p>He waits. Hanging in the balance, posing lovelorn beneath the moon as any heart-sore lover should. It is part of the game. As much a disguise as the mask itself, a role for him to perform. But his heart is pounding and pounding, far more honest in his chest.</p>
<p>Footsteps behind him. Dimitri has followed.</p>
<p>“Do I know you, sir?” Dimitri’s opening gambit. The beginning of a dance of an entirely different kind.</p>
<p>Sylvain angles his face down to hide his lips and eyes. Turns, slowly, face wreathed in shadows, and all that remains is the gleam of his mask.</p>
<p>He doesn’t answer the question. It’s hard not to – hard not to tease, not to laugh, not to fall into their usual pattern where Sylvain fills the silences. A pattern. A friendship, but a distant one. Not close, never close, even after all these years. Sylvain has never known how to change it.</p>
<p>For the longest time he didn’t want to. Dimitri has always been dangerous - too much, not enough, too <em>much</em> - but some things are inevitable. His beauty, his sadness, his blue, blue eye. Haunting, captivating. Drawing Sylvain, piece by piece, bit by bit, until there is nothing left for him to take.</p>
<p>Dimitri steps forward in the silence. Agitation clear in his limbs – curious, confused, pulled in by the mystery before him. On his guard, certainly, for nothing like this has happened to him before. But curious.</p>
<p>“Why did you give me this?” Dimitri says.</p>
<p>“It is a gift.” Sylvain speaks differently to his usual cadence. As formal and precise as Dimitri is, though it doesn’t come naturally.</p>
<p>“I am not well-versed in the language of flowers, but… I know they carry meaning.” Dimitri pauses, clearly hoping Sylvain will clarify his intent – too shy, too proud, too <em>something</em> to take the message for what it is. Loud and clear, pressed into every petal.</p>
<p>Dedue will have told him what it means, even if Dimitri cannot believe it.</p>
<p>“I ask again, sir,” Dimitri says, “do I know you?”</p>
<p>Slowly, Sylvain inclines his hooded head.</p>
<p>“Then will you take off your mask, so we may speak freely?”</p>
<p>That would defeat the purpose of this game. Sylvain shakes his head.</p>
<p>Dimitri exhales, a clear noise of frustration. Adjusts his own mask with his lithe, beautiful fingers, and Sylvain knows him so well. Sees him steeling himself, readying to level the playing field, to meet his masked stranger in kind. Dimitri is getting better at playing these sorts of games.</p>
<p>Sylvain isn’t Dimitri’s only admirer, after all.</p>
<p>“I see,” Dimitri says. “Tonight is a night of masks, after all. Very well. But unless I mistake your meaning entirely, this flower is… quite a declaration.”</p>
<p>The last part is awkward – perhaps Dimitri’s not so good at playing yet after all. Sylvain hears the tinge of nerves. Sees the tension in Dimitri’s shoulders, the shift of his weight from one long leg to the other. Trying to spar, but too inherently earnest to ever master the trick of it.</p>
<p>Dimitri. Dear, adored Dimitri. Not words Sylvain lets himself think, not ever, but tonight is a different sort of night.</p>
<p>“Can you blame me?” Sylvain asks him. Words that, even masked, he can see Dimitri does not expect to hear.</p>
<p>“I… forgive me. I do not take your meaning. But if I have led you astray…” Dimitri pauses. Gathers himself, and when next he speaks he is smooth as silk. “If I know you, sir, please know I do not intend to be cruel. You need not conceal your face.”</p>
<p>He sounds – unhappy. Which is not Sylvain’s intent. Just like Dimitri to take everything too seriously, even on the night of a masquerade. Even with an unknown suitor in a tiger mask, lingering in a courtyard under the light of the moon, clearly inviting him to play.</p>
<p><em>You need to lighten up</em>, is what Sylvain would usually say. Smiling, teasing, friendly.</p>
<p>Not tonight. Tonight, he steps forward. Moves slowly, deliberately, careful when he watches Dimitri change from awkward tension to a warrior’s wariness. He takes Dimitri’s gloved hand in his own, and Dimitri watches, frozen in place. Unsure.</p>
<p>That won’t do. Sylvain bows low, and presses a kiss to the back of it.</p>
<p>“You are a very cruel man, sire,” he says. “How could I not admire you, when you are so beautiful?”</p>
<p>Dimitri’s hand twitches in his grasp, the only sign of how startled Dimitri is. Dimitri is used to flattery of all kinds – but not this.</p>
<p>Sylvain knows. Dimitri’s heart is not a thing easily won. Not by heartfelt devotion or pleading eyes, and certainly not by extravagant games such as this - something out of a fairy-tale, falling for a silver-tongued man in a mask.</p>
<p>Dimitri has been courted before. Earnestly, intently. There has never been anything in his gaze but pity.</p>
<p>“You flatter me,” Dimitri says.</p>
<p>“I was gazing upon the moon when first you came, but it is not half so fair as you,” Sylvain says, low and soft, hiding his voice. It is a line from a famous piece of poetry. Modified to suit Sylvain’s purposes, but clearly recognisable.</p>
<p>Judging by the huff of air, Dimitri knows it. He extracts his hand from Sylvain’s.</p>
<p>“Very amusing, my masked friend,” he says. <em>Friend</em>. Trying to put a barrier between them already.</p>
<p>“Will you not honour me with another dance?” Sylvain holds his hand aloft and lonely.</p>
<p>“There is no music. And I believe we have already danced.”</p>
<p>“We have, but here would be for my eyes alone, and to the rhythm of my heart.” It is pretty speech. Well-practiced, formal. As far from Sylvain’s casual, teasing tongue as Sylvain can make it.</p>
<p>Dimitri is still as stone.</p>
<p>“Will you not take off your mask? Truly?”</p>
<p>Sylvain shakes his head. Watches Dimitri’s lips tighten.</p>
<p>“Then I thank you for the gift, but I bid you goodnight.”</p>
<p>Too soon. And Sylvain’s voice bursts from his throat – his <em>true</em> voice – before he has time to think. “Wait.”</p>
<p>Dimitri pauses. Tension in the line of his shoulders, neither leaving nor coming back.</p>
<p>One word. Just one. Enough to betray Sylvain, to reveal him – not enough to be sure that he is known. If Dimitri recognises him, he says nothing.</p>
<p>Sylvain has a choice - ask, plead, explain - and yet he has no choice at all. He takes up his disguise again – the man in the tiger mask, flirtatious and mysterious and tempting.</p>
<p>“Come, no need to be hasty. Will you not give me one more dance?”</p>
<p>“I do not enjoy games,” Dimitri says. “I am not that sort of man. You must know this, if you… if you know me. As you claim.”</p>
<p>Careful, hesitant, guarded. Enough for it to mean something. Not enough to know if Sylvain has given himself away.</p>
<p>So he plays on. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. You drive me out of my senses, you see.”</p>
<p>Another attempt at charm. Dimitri is cold as ever.</p>
<p>“I will ask once more – take off your mask, if there is something you wish of me.”</p>
<p>“I can’t. But anything else you ask for, I’ll give you.”</p>
<p>Dimitri tips his head, blond hair falling like the flow of a river. Face half-concealed by his mask, but still so beautiful.</p>
<p>So, so beautiful.</p>
<p>“Very well…” he says. “Answer me, then. How long have I known you?”</p>
<p>“Long enough.”</p>
<p>A twitch of Dimitri’s mouth – frustration. He tries another approach. “This game of yours – do you play it often?”</p>
<p>“No. Only for you.” Sylvain grins. Dimitri is playing along – but his style of game is easily won.</p>
<p>“<em>Why</em> will you not take off your mask?”</p>
<p>The answer is easy – should be easy. Another bit of flattery, another deflection. A hand pressed to his forehead and a cry of despair. <em>Be gentle with me, most fair, cruel king, </em>all theatre and disguise.</p>
<p>But Sylvain is masked. A masked, unnamed man dressed in shadow, and there is a desperate freedom in that.</p>
<p>“Because you don’t love me.” It is honest in a way Sylvain has never been, and perhaps never will be again. Honest in a way he can only be behind a mask.</p>
<p>He should add something more. <em>Give me one night. One dance. One more kiss of your hand.</em> Something, anything, to make it less real, to draw Dimitri once more into the hypnotic freedom of a stranger in the night.</p>
<p>He doesn't.</p>
<p>Stillness, silence. Dimitri staring at him, lips parted. Shocked? Aghast? Dismayed?</p>
<p>A wind blows through the courtyard. Rustling the leaves and bushes, teasing at Sylvain’s hood. He pulls it tight. Thinks, for a moment, he sees a flash of the red of his hair before he engulfs himself once more in shadow.</p>
<p>“Love,” Dimitri whispers. Quiet, constrained, conflicted. It makes something ache in Sylvain’s chest.</p>
<p>Dimitri stutters his next breath. Shifting, moving with the breeze. Not still, not anymore, but blown apart in the wind.</p>
<p>“I do not enjoy games,” Dimitri says. “I cannot – I cannot do as you wish.”</p>
<p>One night, just one, but Sylvain knows. Asks for too much, even in play.</p>
<p>Sylvain can’t speak. A game, just a game. Over now. For Dimitri withdraws, and he won’t come back. Sylvain bows low, hand over heart.</p>
<p>Dimitri turns away. His cloak swishing and boots clicking on the stone path. Back to the crowd, and the lights, and the dancing. </p>
<p>But he pauses. Turns his head, just enough that Sylvain can make out his profile – and it is Dimitri’s turn to be wreathed in shadows.</p>
<p>“If you want something,” Dimitri says. “Then… come and see me again. Tomorrow night.”</p>
<p>Sylvain's heart stutters in his chest. Stutters, then springs back to life, racing so fast he can hardly bring himself to speak. Breathless, helpless, hopeless.</p>
<p>But he has to. He has to. “This is the night of the masquerade, Your Majesty. A night of secrets.”</p>
<p>A night of games. <em>A </em>game, one and only. But Dimitri is playing a game of his own.</p>
<p>“If it is only for one night, it is not worth the having.” Dimitri is gentle, cruel, dangerous. The sweeping tide pulling Sylvain inexorably further into the depths. “But if you will come… we will see.”</p>
<p>The pressed flower is in Dimitri’s gloved fingers. He rolls its stem back and forth, back and forth. Watching the rotation of the flower-head in the moonlight.</p>
<p><em>My heart aches for you</em>. Sylvain cannot take off his mask. Cannot speak those words with his face bare and cloak discarded. Cannot speak without something to hide behind.</p>
<p>A game. A game. The night of the masquerade – his one chance.</p>
<p>Dimitri's game is a different one. He holds Sylvain's gift in his hands, thoughtful, unreadable. Offers Sylvain something else entirely.</p>
<p>Sylvain can't read him. Can't know what Dimitri does or does not know, does or does not want.</p>
<p>Cannot refuse him.</p>
<p>"Tomorrow, then," he says. And shadowed though he is, he sees Dimitri's lips curve into a smile.</p>
<p>
  <em>Tutto, tutto già si sa</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Loosely inspired by this beautiful piece of art by @AzureMoonFelix - https://twitter.com/AzureMoonFelix/status/1224451463193088001</p>
<p>Italian text taken directly from the Act 1 finale of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni'</p>
<p>I'm @ladylapisxx on Twitter! :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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